A delicate and authentic magic

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 1999)

Upon first consideration, "The Legend of 1900" seems merely to be a shaggy dog story, albeit a lyrically shot and physically sumptuous shaggy dog story. The more you consider it, however, the more penetrating the film becomes. Forget Hollywood action fluff like "End of Days". THIS is a parable for the end of the millennium.
Tim Roth stars as Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900, born in his namesake year aboard a cruise liner called the Virginian and taken in by the ship's crew as a surrogate son. 1900, as everyone calls him, reveals a prodigistic ability on the piano, and over the years, he wins admirers and friends, and becomes a figure of musical legend...all the while never setting foot on dry land. Even after being given the opportunity to make it big as a recording artist. Even after besting "the man who invented jazz", Jelly Roll Morton (played with fierce pride by Clarence Williams III) in a piano duel. Even after facing the temptation of a wide-eyed, beatific muse...1900 stays firmly rooted to the sea.
As we watch, we enjoy the skillful performances of Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince, who plays Max, the trumpeter in the ship's jazz band and 1900's closest friend. We also appreciate the film's visual presentation. Director Giuseppe Tornatore and cinematographer Lajos Koltai give every shot a lush, burnished elegance, and the film is caressed by a lovely score from the legendary Ennio Morricone.
Eventually, though, it all comes to an end. The world survives a war, Max returns to dry land, and the Virginian rots away, and still 1900 stays on board the ship. Finally, Max comes on board, pleading to his friend to leave and come into the world. And 1900, a man who speaks for the past that he is named for, delivers a speech that renders the fact that this review is being written for the Internet bitterly ironic. It lays bare the fact that we are all lost in a vast and impersonal sea of endless stimulus, that provides us with all we seemingly need but does not allow us to really put down roots, to take shape, to grow. The film speaks urgently to a world caught in the stranglehold of sensationalistic mass media and corporate control. It imparts a simple but essential message. Better to be the shining star of a small world than to travel through infinite space as a nobody.
"The Legend of 1900" is a sleeper, and one of the deepest and most interesting films of the year.